Insurance chief can challenge £48m divorce settlement

Last updated at 16:50 23 November 2006

Insurance magnate John Charman, ordered to pay his former wife £48 million in what is believed to be the biggest divorce award in British legal history, has been given permission to take his case to the Court of Appeal.

When the settlement was ordered in private at the High Court Family Division at the end of July this year, the 54-year-old Bermuda resident and owner of the Axis insurance group vowed to appeal.

His case, in which he will argue that his £20 million offer to his former wife was more than adequate, has been listed for hearing from March 7 next year.

Beverley Charman, 53, was awarded a total of £48 million, including £8 million assets which were already in her name, having rejected the earlier proposal by her former husband.

A separate trust fund for their sons of £40 million had already been established.

Mr Charman said today through his solicitors, Withers: "I hope that by appealing against this order I will be able to help bring some clarity, fairness and coherence into the law."

Mr Charman had been told that his argument that he should keep most of the couple's money because he had earned it was old-fashioned and anachronistic.

Divorce lawyers said at the time of the ruling, which reduced Mr Charman's wealth to around £87 million, that the case was likely to have ramifications for the forthcoming case between Heather Mills and Sir Paul McCartney.

In his judgment in the High Court on the Charman case, Mr Justice Coleridge indicated he would have liked a jury to help him to decide an appropriate award.

Writing recently in the Inner Temple journal, Lord Justice Thorpe, Vice President of the Family Division, drew attention to the huge discretion vested in judges when deciding settlements.

The senior judge also highlighted the outdated nature of divorce law and House of Lords' decisions which had "dismantled the yardstick of reasonable requirements".

The President of the Family Division, Sir Mark Potter, said publicly at a conference recently that the House of Lords' decision in two high-profile divorce cases had failed to bring clarity to the divorce courts.

In these two big money cases, heard together at the House of Lords, the Law Lords came down on the side of the ex-wives.

Melissa Miller kept the £5 million she was awarded out of her ex-husband Alan's £17.5 million fortune and Julia McFarlane was entitled to £250,000 a year from her ex-husband Kenneth for life - not just the five years decided by the Court of Appeal.

Mr and Mrs Charman were married in 1976 when neither had significant resources, according to his lawyers.

During the 27-year marriage, Mr Charman built up considerable wealth in the insurance market in the City of London.

Mr Justice Coleridge accepted when he first heard the case that Mr Charman had made an "exceptional contribution" to the marriage.

In early 2003 Mr Charman moved to Bermuda and separated from his wife, who continues to live in England.

In June 2004 Mrs Charman petitioned for divorce in the UK and after various additional applications, a decree nisi was granted in April 2005.

Mr Charman contended that, whatever the size of the matrimonial assets he had accumulated, his wife should be awarded substantially less than an equal share because of his unique and exceptional contribution to the creation of the family's wealth.

Mr Charman believes that the assets left in the Dragon Trust, set up in 1987 and now based in Bermuda, should be left entirely out of the settlement because they were deposited in a "dynastic" trust for the longer-term benefit of members of his family and he does not have access to or control over those assets.